Sarah's notes, when she read them to
me as I went into what once had been a maze and was now a collection
of tall stacks of boxed materials that I seemed to implicitly know
where much of what we needed could be found, this while blindfolded,
made less and less sense as I heard her read it. I was homing in
upon first those boxes of 'Tosser' pistols the witches had been
rifling, and when I came to the first of those dust-mounds I had
pointed out, I consulted the marks I
had made on the map.

“How..?”
screeched Sarah. “I was holding this thing back-to-front if those
are here!”

“I thought so,”
said Katje. “This place is not done with its cursing yet.”

“Uh, no,” I
said. “It's big, it's dark, it has no real landmarks, it's spooky
enough to be worse than a huge privy might be to a frightened
toddler...”

“What is this?”
asked Sarah. “That term is only found in a Gustaaf, and that book
does not know what that word means.”

“I think he
means waddler,” said Katje. “That would be a child that's
just learned the proper things to put in privies, and is able
to use what's found inside a privy with no help beyond perhaps a
short-stool to climb up and a board to set on so as to not fall in
the stool.”

“Waddler?” I asked.

“They still have accidents sometimes
when they're that young,” said Katje, “which is why they wear
diapers double-folded inside their underclothing, one pair to the
front and another to the rear.”

“Hence they waddle..?”

“If a child has its second birthday
and it's still having trouble using the privy,” said Sarah,
“it is either a witch's baby, or it is slow enough to make me worry
about witches trying to attach brass cones for the head when he or
she first goes to school.”

“You mean the very first day such a
child goes to school, Sarah,” said Katje. “Most parents keep
such children hidden indoors until they can flee the area with their
child.”

“If they do not kill their own
'accidentally',” I said.

“That happens more in the second
kingdom than here, though the ones that do it up this way are very
tricky,” said Sarah.

“Most of those witches died
in the last twenty-four hours,” said the soft voice. “The rest
of them have died since that trip ended.”

“What?” I asked.

“One of the signs of a family's
leanings is the state of its children,” said the soft voice. “If
a family looks with longing toward the outward trappings
of witchdom, it is more likely to have such children – and if that
family actually is
that of a witch, much like many
families in the second kingdom house, the children tend, with few
exceptions, to be either most-precocious witches or feeble-minded.”

“If they live
long enough to emerge,” said Sarah. “Many of them do not,
and that is for those born on the continent. Those at Norden are so
strange that I wonder about them.”

“Don't,” said
the soft voice. “Those people became as pre-flood witches that
way, at least for their anatomy, and the reason that whole mess was
tossed up there was the witches that then owned this area wanted to
keep it under their control.”

“And cause
trouble for one of their enemies, also,” I said, as I
avoided the second large conjoined dust-mound and found a hidden
cache of 'Tosser' pistols laying next to it. “This container has a
decent percentage of 'good' ones in it...”

“You mean nearly
all of the remaining good ones that aren't scattered among those
dust-mounds on the floor,” said the soft voice. “Nearly every
other pistol you're likely to find in here of that type is a true
'Tosser', save for a small number of widely-scattered weapons.”

“And these?” I
asked, as I put it on the nearest cart. The vehicles were just
barely narrow enough to fit in the aisles, assuming the person
towing them was especially careful. It made me wish to hunt up those
smaller carts, in fact, as those could most likely go around
the myriad corners in this mess.

“About a third
of those in that box are 'Tossers', which means you've got another
fifteen 'good' ones,” said the soft voice. “You might not have
enough 'good' ones to hand them out profligately at this time,
but you can have sufficient good ones to arm most of the
trustworthy people at the house proper and those you personally
know.”

“And the other
'Tossers' will need dismantling, heat-treating, some degree of
parts-replacement, possible minor reworking, blacking, cleaning, and
then reassembly,” I murmured. “How many of those?”

“Twelve for
every 'good' one, and that's not counting the rusted ones, the
other witch-cached ones down here, or those weapons coated with
preservative-wax,” said the soft voice. “The rust on those
corroded pistols is mostly cosmetic, by the way – they'll work
'well enough' once they've been gone through, and there's a good
chance you can find a lot of 'new' parts overseas to replace the
rust-damaged ones.”

“And complete
pistols,” I murmured. I recalled them being spoken of as 'very
common'.

“Not unless you
both know where to look and manage to find the needed time so
as to actually look for them,” said the soft voice. “Those
– as well as most weapons over there – are not merely 'all
locked up', but are generally well-hidden, at least at this
time.”

I dodged two more
instances of dust-mounds, then found the 'rifled' mounds of
'Pistols'. While there were no outward signs of pilfering here – I
had seen ample signs of pilfering elsewhere – I knew that
was but the seeming; and upon opening the first of the hefty 'cans',
I found it filled with what looked like scrap metal – scrap metal
that went to rust and dust nearly instantly upon my opening the box.

“They cleaned
that one out and weighted it with scrap from the machine shop here,”
said the soft voice. “Lay that one aside for 'cleanup', and get
the one beneath it. You'll then see what I meant by those witches
going through those things.”

I did so, and to
my astonishment, I saw two interleaved plastic-wrapped rows of
pistols with two gaps, one in each side. The whole, for an instant,
had a modest covering of faint reddish-hazed fingerprints that
vanished over the course of seconds.

“How..?”

“Much the same
as you did, save they did not use a less-good file,” said
the soft voice. “They had a non-contact means of determining
hardness, and they used that instead.”

“Probably worked
by curses,” I muttered, as I put the box back. “Now off to find
something else we need.”

“Not yet,”
said the soft voice. “Go to the next stack laying to the north,
and look on its north side for the boxes of cleaning kits.
You'll find some of the manuals to these weapons there also.”

Finding a way to
the aforementioned stack without walking through one or more
wide-spreading mounds of dust needed care on my part, careful
navigation in a circuitous path, and leaving the carts where they
were 'in line', as well as everyone following in my wake with me
holding a string in one hand and a lantern in the other, as this
particular area seemed to have 'darkness poured out upon it like
accursed witch-ink', as Sarah had said.

“Was this why
you had so much trouble?” I asked. “Areas like this one, which
have... No, best not ask that fetish to go to hell. Not now, and
certainly not in here.”

“There are no
fetishes left in here,” said the soft voice, “other than
those few you have already found.” A pause, then, “that
'darkness' is due to the presence of enough opened boxes that the
lanterns have trouble producing as much light as a bad tallow
candle – that, and the cold in this room is reducing the candles'
outgassing, which accounts for the balance of their dimmer aspect.”

“Opened boxes?”
I asked. It was dark enough for me to wish to tread slowly, with my
lantern held close to my chest and my eyes 'peeled' for dust mounds.
I did not want to touch them, as I could tell some of that cursed
tungsten was hiding around here, both in bagged form and scattered
here and there.

“The
preservative packets in the bins prevent oxidation, among
other chemical reactions,” said the soft form. “Fire is one form
of oxidation they retard markedly, and hence this and other
regions are 'dark'.”

“Hence we need
all of these lanterns we can get...” I stopped speaking, then with
a trace of a smirk, “put a few drops of boiled distillate in a
batch of candle-wax when compounding it.”

“Yes, if you
burn such candles in cold environments only,” said the soft
voice. “They'll start fires otherwise – and when I say cold,
I do not mean 'normal' cold. I mean 'freezing' cold, like in this
room, or colder yet.”

“It is
that in that place,” said Sepp. “I did understand that much.”

“It might be
that cold for the first few hours after you-all get
there,” said the soft voice, “and the same for the level of
darkness you saw. It will become noticeably warmer and brighter
shortly thereafter, at least in most places.”

“Why only a few
hours?” asked Sepp. “Is there a lot of well-hid firewood to put
to the stoves there?”

“That is exactly
what I meant when I said you alone really understand,” said
Katje, “and I think you sell yourself quite short in
thinking you don't understand what that place is like.” A pause,
then, “and being told this place around here is dark has me
thinking the speaker to be speaking well of a bad situation, as this
lantern might be giving as much light as a soggy tallow
candle.”

“Those things
actually exist?” I asked, as I barely missed the edges of a
dust-mound. I stopped, turned, and noted a telltale pair of small
cloth sacks beyond it. “Watch this dust-mound. That wretch
was carrying that cursed shot in two bad bags, and he had at least
one machine-pistol on a strap. We'll need to collect the weapons up
after we get to where we're heading.”

“Yes, if their
tallow is especially bad and they put a lot of salt to it to
hide its odor, they can become 'dampened' to the point of dissolving
and then putting one's candle-holder to 'rust',” said Katje. “That
was all town had to sell until that place finally burned, and those
things did well to burn in our house.”

“She was trying
to render her own tallow, it was so bad for candles, at least
until she became too ill to do much,” said Maarten. “At least
now we get some wax candles for studying.”

“You will wish
to keep those hid most-carefully in your basement,” said Sarah –
who then jumped as she nearly stepped in that dust-mound I had
barely missed. She was back in the column so as to keep 'the clumsy
twins' out of trouble, those being Karl and Maarten. “There will
be more witch-sentinels watching where you live within a very
few weeks at the most. Count on it.” A pause, then in quieter
voice, “was that a clue?”

“It was,” said
Katje, “and I will make certain those people see what they expect
to see above-ground – at least during the daytime. We'll begin
moving our things out late at night once there are places to put them
in the Abbey.”

“Best have
someone 'experienced' come pick them up for you,” I murmured. “If
I knew how to drive a team...”

My voice suddenly
trailed off. I wasn't planning on learning how to drive one today,
but I did suspect I needed to know how in the future. I just might
have to drive one before long, and that when no one
else could be spared to do so – chiefly as everyone else would
either be fighting, or they'd be incapacitated – or for that matter
– like in this instance – they'd be seriously disinclined
to travel at night.

“You don't, but
I do,” said Sarah, “and I can borrow the other buggy at
home if at need.”

“No, not that
one dear,” I said slyly. “Georg's. Use his, as the
witches won't recognize it, it's so new – and then, it's built to
cope with serious loads, unlike either of what we have ready
access to.”

“Given that it
will finish 'any day now' and the witches are currently scarce in the
area, that's exactly right,” said the soft voice, “and I would
also use Georg's team, as those animals are not ones the watching
witches will be expecting to see there.” A pause, then, “they
know every animal you-all have by sight, and while news of
Sarah's buggy is scarce enough right now due to its newness
and the lack of living witches that have seen it, it isn't able to
hold many of the things Maarten and Katje need to transport.”

“How will that
thing finish 'any day now'?” I asked. I needed to make a 'hard
left', then go four over and then 'back in several rows. The 'region
of darkness' was a study in trouble, and it made me wish for a
bright flashlight. I recalled at least one place where some
might be hiding, as I had marked its location on the list.

“I think Andreas
might know something,” said Sarah. “He was talking of you having
your hands over-full right now, and...”

“And the witches
will be watching the shop especially closely, hence the
parts and everything to that thing are being done in Ploetzee,” I
muttered. “Do they have the tools..?”

“They do,”
said the soft voice. “It might not be the marshes, but
there are capable people there to spare over those working on
guns – and yes, the finished forgings went there instead of the
shop, as have the mostly-finished wooden parts.” A pause, then,
“your instructions regarding finishing that vehicle's parts will be
followed closely by those working on them, by the way.”

“I know about
that part, as I took copies of what was in your ledger to
Andreas myself,” said Sarah. “I think I know how they got in
your ledger, also.”

“M-more
sleep-writing?” I asked.

“No, that was
not this, as they were inked, all thirty pages of writing and
drawings,” said Sarah, “and I have never seen you use a quill
yet.”

“Mostly because
he'll use what they have overseas should they become readily
available,” said Katje. “You'll toss your quills then,
also.”

“I am glad for
this string,” said Sarah. “Karl, watch that dust-mound. We can
pick up that rifle later.”

“Rifle?”
I asked. “Since when..?”

“It seems I had
gotten in the habit of calling all such weapons muskets, even if
Gustav taught me the difference between the two while I was at the
west school,” said Sarah. “Seeing him up here caused me to
remember, that and hearing that word used while I was in the privy
outside.”

“And we'll want
the manual for those things soon enough,” I said, as I made the
'hard left' turn. I had to step over the dust of a witch, and as I
did, I saw another bag of that cursed tungsten shot, this one
small, of leather, and seemingly part-rotten.

“Is it?” I
thought. I meant its part-rotten aspect.

“No, even if
that true-mule leather sack is greasy enough for you to want
tongs to handle it,” said the soft voice. “I'd use one of
the smaller 'sample pouches' you'll find later, as those are as good
as anything you're likely to find on short notice, and they're
waterproof, also.”

“Waterproof?”
I asked. “Sample-pouches? What for?”

“Recall your
mentioning a chemical-resisting 'suit'?” asked the soft voice.
“There are some of those down here, next to one of the places you
marked as having items of interest – and those pouches are part of
the 'equipment' that goes with them. You'll want several of those
pouches, in fact, as not merely are they tough enough to stand up to
that jagged wolfram 'shot' without damage, they also have
heat-insulating properties and will not burn, nor will they be
damaged by chemicals, and they can be made entirely leakproof,
just like those escape-proof containers previously spoken of –
which are in another area entirely down here.” A pause, then,
“that location has some different escape-proof containers,
ones which you will wish to carry some examples of with you on the
trip, at least two for each person and three or four spares
over that at a minimum.”

“Uh, why?” I
asked.

“They're unused,
they're unbreakable, they're passable for insulation, and you
know about how hot and dirty you can get while in the middle of
fighting,” said the soft voice. “You might have your beer in
jugs, but you'll want to use those for carrying it when you're
actually 'dealing with' thugs.”

“Canteens,
then,” I thought.

“You do not
want to use those you'll find down here for drinkables,”
said the soft voice. “Save those things for cooking fuel
storage.”

I was
slow-stepping past the darkest portion yet, my lantern now held down
near my waist, sill wishing I had a flashlight – even a small one
like those I had once worn on a string – when suddenly I nearly
tripped over my own two feet while missing a dust-mound and the
opened box next to it. That jolt got 'telegraphed' back along my
string, and there were voices – echoing, ringing, and possibly
terror-stricken – that came from behind me. I stopped, turned to
my right, and then looked down in that box.

“What?” I
asked, as I reached down to find what looked like a manual of some
kind. What I wanted was lying underneath it, as while the witch
could trade the manual in question for things he wished or
needed, he could use his other prize himself due to the
prevailing nature of witch-territory at the time of his demise.

Witches loved
darkness then, and most of the place was as dark as an unlit coal
mine where I came from; and while 'flambeaux' fueled with rendered
human and 'animal-mingled' tallow were both coveted fetishes and very
uncommon, small brass and copper candle-lanterns were both
commonplace and jealously guarded by their owners as long as they
remained alive.

There was
something about that matter that made for wondering: if the place had
effectual lighting and generators then, why did it
remain so infernally dark? Especially when the worker's territory
was, relatively speaking, very well-lit indeed, both with
lights and lanterns of one kind or another.

Two more head-tall
'blocks' lay ahead, each of them needing care in stepping around due
to the witch-mounds and dropped equipment. While that one box had
something in it of great use, the witches had only gotten into a few
of the many boxes of such things, as to be seen using an 'electric
torch' in witch-territory usually meant a 'challenge to the
death and beyond' happening there on the spot, with every witch
within earshot rushing to join in killing the 'disgrace' who had so
profaned the sanctity of witchdom.

“And I could use
one of those 'electric torches' about now, as this candle is barely
burning,” I muttered.

“Having one
won't do you any good, on account of its battery not being charged
up,” said the soft voice, “and then overseas, and indeed
everywhere save in certain select locations right now, it
would be most unwise to use one – as not even those of the fourth
kingdom know of electric lighting, and there are many sensors
overseas that are especially reactive to that type of
light.”

“More than one
sensor network, then,” I thought, as I dodged another dust-mound.
The rifle that witch was carrying had been flung several feet, as
he'd been running when he fell.

“Closer to 'the
main network' with the bulk of the recent-vintage sensors feeding
encrypted data into it, a dedicated sensor network that is
currently viewed only by certain individuals that are not in
contact with those you will be encountering save by time-consuming
special messenger travel, and then several other dedicated
networks with sensors feeding into them that are so old
that only a few people over those individuals even bother with
them.” A pause, then, “however, if you can get 'in', you can
'mess up' all of them in one way or another.”

“Which means I
need to, if possible,” I thought. I then remembered how it
would be possible to 'repair' the damage quite readily, if there was
but one or two people present who knew how. I had had to do
that at home more than once, hence I kept backup disks handy –
disks that I bagged with static-dissipative bags and then sealed
tightly with aluminum foil, and that in addition to hard-copy
versions of the critical system files.

It was a lot
faster to just swap in a ready-to-go new disk in the main
computer than to try to repair serious damage to its file system, and
I'd had that precise thing happen more than once in the year prior to
my leaving. The 'daily' updates happened automatically using a C++
program I'd written during one of my first periods of 'idleness', and
those were burned onto a special one-time 'memory device' that
I removed from its drive and labeled with a felt-tipped pen when I
'started' in the 'morning' – and then I hid that disk in an
army ammo-can in Mrs. Ulyanov's office. I had them all in
chronological order, all the hundreds of them that had accumulated;
and when a firm 'tossed' me, I took the just-finished can out, sealed
it with duct-tape, and put it in the quiet room's closet. I kept an
eye out for suitable cans between jobs, picked a handful of the
freshest ones I could find during the first month of traveling to
medical appointments and fetching consumable supplies, then 'cleaned
and painted' the best of the eight to ten cans I'd buy during
those outings. That can then went in the hole when I was finally
rehired.

I wasn't certain
if Mrs. Ulyanov knew about that hole in the floor or not. I'd put in
a solid two weeks of hard labor getting that hiding place right.

“There aren't
many people able to do such repairs, and they're in a
special enclave where they're more or less closeted,” said the soft
voice.

“That's easily
done remotely, though,” I thought.

“They don't
know the passwords to get access to the 'outside world', much less
those other computer networks,” said the soft voice, “and getting
trusted messengers to those who 'possess' those passwords...”

A long and
pregnant-with-possibilities pause came. Words came seconds later,
while time seemed to have stopped with my foot raised and 'halted',
much as if I had come to an endless loop in a computer program that
executed the 'no-op' instruction and then returned to the address
before it.

“That's not
going to be easy, as those people are closeted even closer in
a different area geographically; more, unlike those who know
how to do the work, those latter people, to a man, are serious
witches – and hence they are going to want that
responsibility entirely unto themselves.” Another pause,
then, “and those people will cause more damage to the
equipment and files in their drug-addled 'ardor'. They will not
do anything in the way of repairs.”

“What?”
I spluttered. But one stack more, then another left turn. I'd
thought there were only two such stacks in the darkness. There were
actually three.

“You're very
unlikely to find them, much less encounter mention of
them at this time,” said the soft voice. “Those who are spoken
of as being 'black-dressed thugs' would be considered half-hearted
supplicants over here, even if they are thought to be evil
enough by the 'commons' of that place.” A pause, then, “the
people you'll have to watch for especially will be
especiallyobvious – and not all of those people wear
blue clothing at this time.”

Three steps, each
cautious, slow, waiting for trouble, then dodge another
dust-mound. A glance further on, this to my right to see a
flung-to-the-side machine-pistol as I actually made the turn to the
left, then resuming the cautious slow steps of before. The darkness
was but little less here, and the smell – faint, musty,
chemical-laden – spoke of many preservative packets slowly
outgassing and 'stealing' oxygen. I wondered if I would smother, in
fact.

“They won't do
that,” said the soft voice. “That stuff is not 'biologically'
active, and while it isn't good to eat – poisonous if eaten,
in fact – you'd have to eat a large handful for it to kill
you.”

“A h-handful?”
I gasped.

“Of a material
that tastes worse than bad soap,” said the soft voice, “and
that taste would not just have you spitting it out. You'd be spewing
from both ends long enough to cause real trouble.”

“B-bad soap?”
I asked. I only now realized that this was much of the
way I was getting 'educated' about matters I needed to know
now or would need to know in the future, hence such conversations
were 'essential' if otherwise distracting. The chief dangers present
here – witch-mounds and accursed tungsten shot, both of which were
readily avoided given a certain level of watchfulness – allowed
'some' degree of distraction, unlike those traps encountered earlier
today.

“If you have not
tasted it, you have not missed much,” said Katje. “If it smells
as bad as what they made in town for soap before the place burned, it
must taste terrible – as decent soap tastes bad enough for
me to remember it well from when I tasted it as a baby.”

I looked to each
side, then tried to count how many stacks we needed to pass until we
actually got to where we needed to go. I then had trouble
remembering what it was we needed to find, due to the distraction.

And, as I learned,
plummeting blood sugar. Sucking on a vial of honey helped to no
small degree, even to the point of suddenly recalling I needed at
least one manual and some cleaning kits.

“No, best get
two manuals,” I thought. “Cleaning kits – not sure,
beyond we want at least two of them for the group who's going, and
one for each group of people who's staying.”

“Try more like
'as many as you and one other person can readily carry, as there's
one for each pistol present in here,” said the soft voice, “and
while most people won't know enough to clean those weapons properly
without lengthy sessions of teaching, they can swab out
the bores with 'motor oil' and then wipe them off externally with
rags moistened with the same.”

“Won't help them
much if they have to use these pistols a lot,” I thought.

“Most people
won't,” said the soft voice. “Those that are likely to need
to use them much will not usually not need 'lengthy' teaching – and
then, also recall that these rounds aren't loaded with black
powder.” A pause, then, “if you clean the pistols internally
with distillate and then lubricate them with that blue oil or things
like it, they'll fire several magazine's worth of rounds
between cleanings – which is easily a year's shooting for most
people other than those wearing greens or those living with you.”

“And the
exceptions will either be few or pick up matters quickly,” I
thought. “Karl?”

“He won't use
his much,” said the soft voice. “You – maybe, and maybe not,
least for this trip.” The unspoken remainder, I already knew about
by direct experience. I would
use them a fair amount, assuming I could manage them. “Gabriel –
give him something a little less trouble-prone, as he will
need to do his share of the shooting and a club won't be enough for
him to do his part.” The unspoken portion that followed I
understood to mean 'Sepp and Sarah will learn to clean theirs
passably without you spending hours teaching them'.”

“Best give him a
machine-pistol,” said Sarah from somewhere behind me. “If he
needs to shoot, he's less likely to go wrong with one of those over a
pistol or something like you used to wake up those wine-merchants
this morning – that, or a fowling piece. I know he can manage one
of those if someone watches him closely enough.”

“One of those we
found?” I asked. I could feel the manuals ahead, but two or three
more stacks 'in' and one to my right.

“I want one of
those things,” said Sepp. “He can have the other, if Karl will
turn loose of it.”

From somewhere
close by, I could hear a maniacal laugh, one that seemed to
ring with riotous 'mirth'. If ever someone was made to fire
machine guns, it would have to be Karl. I then wondered just
how I could hear such ghostly laughter.

I could put such
matters on hold now, unlike the minutes... Minutes? Or was
it hours? I wasn't certain just how long I'd been holding this
'string' with one hand and my lantern down at waist level just in
front of me, my eyes 'glued' to the floor watching in the faint halo
of lantern-light, and as I passed the second of the three stacks, I
could feel what we were after clearer.

I also knew why we
wanted as many cleaning kits as we could readily carry. While I
might not be able to teach every person with a pistol how to clean it
properly without several lengthy teaching sessions, those
receiving such weapons could do what they understood to do and
acquire some familiarity with a piece of equipment that had
'dropped straight out of an old tale and into their lap'. That
smattering of familiarity would help more than a little when
it came time to actually teach them about weapons-cleaning and other
matters relating to a society that would swiftly move itself many
hundreds of years into the future.

“And more, a
society that shows that its people can be trusted by arming them to
the teeth and beyond,” I thought. “The place is going to be like
an armed camp, almost – none of these stupid disarmed utopias I've
read about that would be easy meat for the witches or whoever else
tries to cause trouble.”

And as if to
answer, I knew that was wrong. I hadn't gone nearly far enough in my
thinking, as for a time at least, the place would need to be
heavily armed against outside attack – and once its
reputation was made, it would need to be maintained in that
heavily-armed state until the end of time.

Calling
that planet an
'ultra-militarized zone' was nothing more than the cold hard
truth.

For an instant,
the darkness faded to be replaced by another darkness, one where I
saw children – children younger than I had been when I had
first held a rifle; these examples might have been four or five years
old – being coached extensively on how to recognize, maintain, and
fire weapons. It wasn't just reading, writing, and arithmetic for
these 'infants' – everything they were taught was heavily
laden with 'how to make war and destroy your enemies utterly, for
they are numerous and desiring your deaths every second they live'.
These people would be free, and they'd kill without a shred of
hesitation to stay free – yea, destroy entire planets
even, and not think a second time on the matter; as they knew
the nature of their enemies, and they knew beyond doubting
that they would receive no mercy from them.

“Hence kill them
all, and show no mercy save to those who earn the right to
receive it,” I thought. It did make a certain sense. There
was, after all, 'a time to kill' as well as 'a time to heal' – and
that was straight from a portion of the book, a 'sub-book' with a
name that didn't translate at all well into the language I heard and
spoke. Maarten commonly called it 'that small-book without a name
which we can speak', and everyone hearing him knew exactly
what he meant.

Everyone I
personally knew did also. I had met a few children, even if most of
them were old enough to finish the lower six terms and were either
working in the fields or were apprentices to tradesmen – and all of
them knew what that phrase meant as applied to the book.

“And, here, we
turn,” I thought, as I saw the block. I took three long
steps, my lantern went from 'barely lit' to 'near-full brightness' as
I walked those three steps – and as I dropped the string, I reached
for the first 'satchel' laying atop this still-neat head-high stack,
and to my surprise, I felt 'inside' it as I reached for something to
pull the slick fabric pouch off of the 'mound'. While small as such
pouches went, I could tell this one wasn't a commonplace cleaning
kit, at least if I went by those I knew of where I came from.

“Did they put a
lot of manuals in these things?”

“That one you
touched is an armorer's satchel,” said the soft voice, “and
hence it not merely has the usual things found in a cleaning kit for
'Tosser' pistols, but also full gages and the special tools needed to
do 'depot-level' repairs.” A pause, then, “and those people
heading south with Rachel were glad for the example they had taken,
even if they had to make some of its tools from pictures.”

“Does this
one...”

“It has
everything,” said the soft voice. “Now get it down, and
start passing those smaller pouches you find under it back to those
gathering up the string at your back.”

I did as
instructed, and as I grabbed pouch after pouch, these of a fabric I
recognized as that 'thicker' tight-woven stuff Sarah had wondered
about, I didn't bother counting. Only when I'd passed back 'quite a
few', including another armorer's kit, did I stop.

I wanted a spare
kit of that type to take home, as I was taking that first armorer's
kit with me on the trip if at all possible.

“And now
we can...”

“No, backtrack
the way you came, and pick up those things the witches dropped,”
said the soft voice. “That string you just dropped will help lead
you back to the carts, as Karl tied his string to one of them
and he was paying it out the whole time you were going through this
'maze'.”

“Thank God,” I
spluttered. My estimation of Karl grew again, as I had not thought
to do so.

“He is
learning, which is one reason why he's planning on taking more than
what you have spoken of thus far,” said the soft voice. “He'll
not be the only person on that gun, by the way.”

“Uh, who?” I
asked.

“You'll get your
share, I suspect,” said Sarah. “I doubt he'll wish to shoot it
all by himself once he tries it, as I think he'll soil his
underclothing when he first hears it fire.” Then, in lower voice,
“when you woke up that camp this morning, I almost did that very
thing myself.”

“Good that you
did not, Sarah,” said Katje, as the 'mob' began to give me passage.
“Maarten, here, hang onto some of these pouches. There's a lot of
things he's going to need to pick up on the way back to those carts.”

Katje wasn't
exaggerating, as when I came to the first dust-mound, that being the
one of the witch trying to make off with the box, I reached first
toward the hidden edge of the dust-mound, and saw the dust flee from
my hand to show a faintly mottled-looking 'Tosser' pistol. I picked
it up, and instantly knew this was one of those which that one witch
had spent hours of his valuable time 'improving'.

“Not merely
'improving',” said the soft voice. “It was one of his personal
weapons, and that box that witch was trying to run off with when that
gas projector went off was one of that witch's cached
supply-boxes.”

“You mean?” I
asked, as I now reached for the dusty-seeming manual that I had seen
while on the way 'in'. My lantern was dim once more, and as the dust
fled from the surface of the manual, I saw that it was one for
'Tosser' pistols. I flicked my hand across its cover, and as the
pages turned one and two a second, I saw numerous markings in their
margins – until the common-looking paper was suddenly replaced
with a number of slick-looking shiny 'plastic' pages, these covered
on both sides with handwritten notes – notes sprinkled with dozens
of odd symbols that took me looking closely at them with the manual
inches from my face while Sarah and Katje each held two lanterns
above my head, one in each of their hands.

“That's
witch-scribbling,” said Sarah, “only it's a kind I might have
read about once.”

“Not normal
witch-scribbling, even if I can understand about two-thirds of this
other stuff,” I murmured. “So that is where that weird way of
writing came from – those witches then wrote that way, only this
stuff has all of these strange terms in it...”

I put my finger on
one of the odd words, this being written with no consonants and being
'impossible' to pronounce, and suddenly the entire page changed to
allow no less then three added lines, these written in 'plain text',
unlike the rest of the notes.

“It
t-translated,” I squeaked.

“Not just that
word,” said the soft voice. “Each of those strange terms is now
'numbered', much as you used to do with footnotes in your working
copies of what you worked on where you came from, and now there are
pages at the end of that witch's notes that explain exactly what they
all mean, just like what happened there.” A pause, then, “while
your take is correct on where 'Ye Written Format' comes from, if you
read that version, you'll get both an entirely different
meaning from what it means today and an entirely different
understanding of it.”

“Why, it-it
actually means something more than 'I think like a witch' in this
case?”

“Yes, it does,”
said the soft voice. “In this instance, it's actually much like a
foreign language – a very terse species, one which will
remind you of a certain 'language description' that was notorious
that way – as in 'impenetrably dense' and 'they did not waste
ink'.”

“Terse to the
point of omission,” I spluttered, as I recalled the precise
book in question. I'd retained my copy from school, more out of
interest than real usefulness to my own programming efforts. It had
been a required text in a number of classes I had taken. “That
book needed twice its pages, as they left a lot of things
out!” I then had a question regarding the strange words.

“Witch-language?”
I asked. “As in that one picture?”

“Got it in one,”
said the soft voice. “Underworld German was but one such
language used then, and while it was – and is – used
commonly here, that other language was then what 'real' witches,
including most witch-soldiers, spoke as a 'common language', even if
they also knew a variant of the one used among the 'commons' for
addressing them – and hence, that expert witch used many
terms from that language so as to both 'retain his secrets' and
further 'compact' his notes – which is why his six
handwritten pages grew to twenty when they were 'translated'.”
A brief pause, then, “you'll still need to do some careful reading
and note-taking when you read that manual, as his marginal
notes spell out in great detail the weaknesses and strengths of those
pistols in particular and all of the others found in here in some
significant depth.”

“Weaknesses?”
I asked, as I put the manual in my now-overburdened possible bag and
reached once more for the things the box still hid.

“Those pistols
that put people in the privy do have some weaknesses,” said
the soft voice. “They're a bit difficult to clean if you aren't
familiar with them, much like what you once had was.”

“Stinking
recoil-spring plug thwacked me in the head, and then I had to
hunt for it after bandaging my head,” I muttered. “Almost
as dangerous to clean as it was painful to shoot.”

“These aren't
quite that bad,” said the soft voice, “even if they gave
witches absolute fits to clean.” A pause, then, “those
witches that could get them, though – they prized them
highly, and did whatever they possibly could to keep them fed and
functioning.”

“Uh, why,” I
asked. “Stopping power?”

“That
especially,” said the soft voice. “Had Sarah shot that
one witch with one of those pistols rather than that roer, that witch
would have dropped right there – as not only do those bullets have
substantial size and heft, they also have substantial velocity –
and that came in handy for that expert witch, as some of his enemies
wore a species of 'body armor' as well as knew those 'hardening'
curses especially well.”

“If he used one
of those, then..?”

“Not one,”
said the soft voice. “Recall how Hieronymus carried four pistols?”
A brief pause, then, “he's now where he belongs, by the way.”

“Good,” spat
Sarah. “Did that one stinker of a witch carry as many pistols as
Hieronymus?”

“More,
actually,” said the soft voice. “He carried at least four
pistols on his person as well as a machine pistol, and usually
several loaded magazines for each weapon he carried.”
A pause, then, “you'll find some of the equipment down here that
he used to carry his gear, and I'd advise you at least trying them,
as they work well when you must carry a lot and then
move quickly through messy regions.”

“M-messy?” I
asked.

“Like the
Swartsburg was when you were moving toward that drink-house,” said
the soft voice, “and then while it was blowing up around you, and
then when you were hiding among those drunken black cattle while
escaping that place.”

“M-Miura thought
I was just another crazy person then,” I spluttered. “It was
like he recognized me.”

“First, no black
clothing, and then you smelled like 'wreckage',” said the soft
voice. “Hence, you weren't 'interesting', and then, finally, you
were being protected to no small degree.” A pause, then,
“besides, Miura was so interested in getting into more drink
and causing trouble for his enemies that he wasn't about to
waste time on someone like you.”

As I waved my hand
over the dust in the box to find nothing of use seemingly remaining,
I had a question, this being: “that stuff was meant to be written
in runes?”

“Yes, and the
reason it was written that way was that that witch didn't want
to constantly chant as loud as he could while searching in his
notes,” said the soft voice. “He might have been a strong
witch, but he wasn't strong enough to try to think straight – while
trashed, no less – and deal with vast swarms of malevolent
spirits that wished to carry him 'straight away to the dinner plate
of Brimstone'.”

I then looked
closer inside the box, and shook my head. Here, I found what the
dust had actually been hiding, that being the 'torch' I had
sensed; and as the dust continued to vanish, I found the
device to have two portions, these being connected by a strange
silvery cord of 'woven silver'.

“That's one of
those...” blurted Sarah.

“You've
heard of these before?” I asked, as I found the 'carrying
straps' to the green-painted metallic 'battery case'. I saw where
the cord entered into it, as well as a rubber-padded clip, and a
gentle tap with my finger caused the slim green-painted 'flashlight'
to slither, at first slow and haltingly, then increasingly rapidly
until it nearly banged into the casing.

As I snapped it
into the clip, I noted that it had two rings, this as much by feel as
by all else, and the raised letters on the one nearest the 'bell' of
the flashlight portion was the one which focused the beam. The
second one, however, was for 'power', and it didn't just turn the
thing on or off.

It actually varied
the power, and when I turned it, I noted several definite detents as
well as a 'rubber-gasketed' feeling.

“Probably
waterproof,” I thought, as I then saw the latches on top of the
box. With the flashlight portion in its clip, I unlatched the pair
of latches holding the 'top' on, and noted inside an obvious
'battery', as well as the following:

Several small
clip-on 'filters' of one kind or another.

A small plastic
vial, this labeled as being 'electrolyte, for dry-charged battery.
Add before first charging cycle'.

An obvious port
for the electrolyte, and another two gold-toned screws, one screw
showing a red dot and the other with a black one. These 'dots' were
in the shape of a '+' and a '-' respectively.

And finally, what
looked like a small folding knife. Removing this tool showed it to
be more than just a knife; it was a folding multi-tool of some kind,
much like some I yet vaguely recalled. I thought to look on the
side, and stamped between the twinned lines of a pair of obvious
scales, I saw the following:

<
Type 31 Tool-Kit, Revision 'S', Intercepted >

“Intercepted?”
I asked. “What does that mean?”

“You'll learn
what that word means soon enough,” said the soft voice. “Think.
You've seen things like that light before, and you've heard of people
copying such devices where you came from.”

“They did that
here?” I gasped.

There was no
answer to this question, or any others I might well have regarding
the meaning of that last word, even as we recovered another of those
modified Tosser pistols belonging to that one expert witch, the rifle
that had been tossed, and then, finally, two machine pistols and
surprisingly, one of those 'common' grenades, this buried in the dust
of the witch I'd waved away after removing the second of the two
'full-loaded' machine pistols.

“How I wish for
another of those bags,” said Sarah, as she piled the two machine
pistols onto a cart after I'd cleared them and replaced the ejected
rounds in their magazines. “Are there such things here beyond
those spoken of?”

“There were a
lot of rivers, canals, and other watercourses in this area once,”
said the soft voice, “and in order for the soldiers to cross them
readily with their gear, they'd rope two of those bags filled with
their equipment side by side and use an 'entrenching shovel'
to paddle across the smaller examples when tactics dictated they do
so.”

“Usually at
night,” I murmured as I led off in search of the bags spoken of,
“and then, in small groups, as the witches had ways of finding the
larger groups readily.”

“Yes, if
they were looking for them,” said the soft voice. “It took the
Mistress of the North nearly a year to get witch-sentinels that were
consistently alert enough to watch their sectors with 'adequate'
care.” The quotes I heard around the word 'adequate' spoke of the
watchers in question doing a less than passable job at least some of
the time, even if it was a huge improvement over what they had
previously managed.

“Cut off their
drink and drugs?” I asked. I could feel the bags ahead, and having
a lantern that worked decently now helped more than a little. I
hoped that whoever had the list was making appropriate marks on it,
at least until I recalled Sarah's speech when I found the pistols. I
then realized I needed to do such marking, and stopped, then
turned around to find the list. I suspected Sarah had it.

“No, just
dedicate certain of her people to that task after doing some surgery
on them and their equipment,” said the soft voice. “She could
then 'zap' them whenever she had a mind to, and that ensured
all of her sentinels remained adequately alert for the
duration of duty.” A pause, then, “that, and she also made
absolutely certain no such person stayed 'glued' to his post longer
than four hours at a time.”

“What?” I
gasped as I found the list. Sarah was trying to mark our path, but I
could tell she was totally lost in this 'mess'. I found our
position and pointed to it, then indicated our 'most-likely' path on
the way to the bags I was now after. “I thought...”

“What
she wanted and what she could realistically get
once the war got going in earnest proved to be two utterly
different things,” said the soft voice, “and the reason it took
her almost an entire year was it took her
nearly that long to learn that not everyone under her was strong
enough to read 'her inclination of the moment' perfectly.
Hence, she did what she did so as to win
– and where chants, curses, 'marks of power', and other things
failed, 'common sense' – as well as the aforementioned 'surgery' –
was what it took to get surly and unruly witch-soldiers to actually
be 'soldiers'.”

“Zap?” I
asked, as I led off once again. I could feel the bags, these in
'pouches' some ten to twenty 'stacks' distant.

“Anything from a
very painful yet brief jolting whole-body 'burning' to an agonizing
yet prolonged death,” said the soft voice, “and that 'surgery'
included installation of a telemetry transmitter that allowed her to
know precisely what that person was doing at any given
time – and more, it gave her easy access to what that individual
was actually thinking in real time.”

“Easy access?”
I asked. I made a slight course correction: about another four
stacks, then a right turn, three stacks, then a left turn to line up
on them. We'd most likely need to leave the carts again, and I hoped
I could remember to use my string this time.

“Without
significant effort on her part, also” said the soft voice. “She
needed but to look at her 'military computer', and she could then
learn in seconds what any of those 'doctored' witches were doing and
thinking. Once she learned that, she could 'control' them
individually, much as if they were puppets.” A pause, then, “doing
so to that sizable group of especially recalcitrant witch-soldiers
finally got the rest of her forces under 'proper' control –
and then they started taking and keeping territory
rather than just fighting and dying while trying to do those
things.”

“They still
died, though,” said Sarah. I turned as I came to the stopping
point, then with a wave of my arm as I indicated which way to go, I
dropped my string and headed over in the direction of the bags.

“True, they did,
and in large numbers,” said the soft voice. “The other
side started taking heavy casualties also, and that had a
near-immediate effect upon those people.”

“They didn't
have heavy casualties before?” I asked. I could feel someone
tugging on my string, much as if they were tying it to something
solid. I hoped it was being tied to a cart, in fact.

“Only among
green troops that were badly led,” said the soft
voice. “If the troops were trained reasonably well before going to
the front and mingled with people who'd been at the front for longer
than a few weeks, it was generally 'easy' fighting, save where the
enemy achieved near-complete surprise and overwhelmed a much-smaller
group with human-wave attacks.” A pause, then, “once those few
hundred 'troublesome' witch-soldiers were no longer able to cause
trouble, though – it was no longer nearly as easy to do
'well' against them, and only those marked or those soldiers who had
learned from being around them for a while still did genuinely
well.”

“Which meant..?”
Steps were coming after me now, these quick, quiet and two in
number. I hoped two would be enough to get the bags we wanted, as we
wanted at least twenty of these things.

“Those people
were fairly common by that time, however,” said the soft
voice, “and then training 'at home' became much tougher, as
well as far more realistic, unlike prior to the war.” A pause,
then, “they actually started having significant numbers of
serious injuries and deaths in training then, as 'safety first'
was surpassed by 'we need to win this war in order to survive as a
people, and the enemy is no longer a pack of idiots'.”

I dodged another
dust-mound, then turned, all the while paying out my string. Someone
to my rear yelled for me to stop, then as I began to lay down my
string-stick, I heard Sepp say, “that's another of those
poke-knives, Sarah. I could use one of 'em.”

“Here, take it,
then,” she said. “We'd best get after that string before we lose
him, as I can tell he's after something important.”

“You want to
'get some', don't you?” asked Sepp. I could tell he was
'grinning'.

“There are no
blue-dressed thugs in here,” she spat. “Who'd you hear that
from? Lukas?”

“Him and
Gilbertus,” said Sepp. “Now he's got that string and moving
again, as I can feel him walking.” A pause, then, “where'd you
hear it?”

“It seems common
among those who wear greens in this kingdom,” said Sarah, “but
I've read it on a number of tapestries as well, and there it speaks
of dealing with witches.” A pause, then, “the first person I
heard say it, though, was Willem, and he told me the best
gunners up here speak that way about blasting swine.”

“I hope he gets
more of those things,” said Sepp. “If those smaller guns weren't
so hard to shift...”

“They come to
pieces, so we should be able to get them up the stairs,” said
Sarah, “assuming we do not fall down them while doing so from
becoming too dizzy.”

I homed in upon
the bags relentlessly, and as I 'saw' them in their pouches, to my
right showed a head-tall stack of whitish 'bricks'. Their complete
lack of odor spoke of especially careful packaging, and when I paused
to look, I took up one of the 'bricks' and shined my lantern's light
upon its label.

“Cooking fuel?”
I murmured. “Type 1634BD-333FED?”

“That's the
military grade material, which you will wish to take some of,”
said the soft voice. “The cones are in boxes on the other
side of that stack.”

Steps
coming from behind, however, took me off of the matter of a
hot-burning smokeless fuel that packed thrice the wallop of light
distillate when properly encouraged, and I took the remaining few
steps toward the bag-stack. Here, I found the bags in dark green
labeled pouches, their labels black-outlined with faintly red-striped
letters. The whole was easy to read and yet unobtrusive in the
extreme, almost as if someone truly realized the value of camouflage;
and when I looked closer at the pouches themselves, I noted a further
matter:

The pouches
were done in a black-and-multi-toned-green-yellow-brown species of
camouflage themselves, and the darkness seemed to but accentuate the
nature of this strange and oddly-striped and streaked mottled green
'mess'. It didn't look like anything I had ever seen before, and as
I recalled the nature of the forests hereabouts, I could see easily
how it might work.

“At least, it
would work once you got inside the thicker woodlots, or if you
were traveling mostly after dark and didn't want to show up in, uh,
infrared.”

“Given that
particular technology was something that this area's military
had a substantial edge in without their curses, it isn't
surprising that you would notice that aspect,” said the soft
voice.

“And if those
watch-witches were strong enough, it showed up glaringly,” I
thought. This nearly came out as speech, even if my hands ignored my
mind's thinking and began passing back pouch after pouch to those
behind me. I could hear clearly the pouches moving steadily
backwards, even as I touched someone's hands accidentally and knew
exactly who it was by simple touch.

“Sarah,” I
thought. “How her hands are still so soft is a mystery,
given all she's done.” A brief pause, then, “are there things
here that, uh, soften skin?”

“Not here,”
said the soft voice. “Across the sea, though – they do have
such things, and they will be very popular here once women
learn of them.” I understood that to be 'not merely the women
here'.

“Is she
inclined that way?” I thought.

“More than
most,” said the soft voice. “You might be surprised as to why,
though.”

“Uh, why?” I
asked.

“She's noticed
how sensitive your touch is,” said the soft voice, “and she does
know your preferences regarding clothing – so she's put those two
things together and figures you might wish to rub her more often.”

“I'd do it a lot
more now if I had the opportunity,” I muttered.

“What is this?”
asked Karl.

“That is not
your trouble,” said Katje. “You'll learn enough of it soon
enough.”

“What?”
I gasped.

“I think she
speaks of how you feel about my hair,” said Sarah quietly. “It
isn't just my hair, is it?”

“More than you
think, dear,” said Katje. “You think you know how good
certain kinds of cloth feels to him. They don't have that
type of cloth here, not now – and I doubt they had it here in the
past.”

“I hope
it can be found soon enough,” I whispered. “How many of those
bags did I hand back?”

“Eighteen so
far,” said Sarah. “Given that we most likely can use three of
these things for each one we can take with us on the trip, I would
pass back more of them.” A pause, then, “what kind of cloth do
you speak of?”

“It has a very,
uh, strange feel to it,” I said. “That stuff you wore
called mule-skin doesn't come close to how good that stuff
feels.”

“It must be very
special,” said Sarah. “Is it hard to get?”

“Here, I doubt
it can be had,” I said. “I suspect they can make it, or
things like it, across the sea.”

“Then I will ask
for some,” said Sarah emphatically.

“You'd better
ask for much more than just that cloth, Sarah,” said Katje.
“You'll need a lot of special tools to work it.”

“This isn't like
witch-cloth?” said Sarah with alarm.

“No witch would
touch this stuff,” I said. “I wonder how they'd act if
they, uh, had some bright blue cloth like what I remember seeing and
touching years ago?”

I could feel
questioning – and I thought to answer it.

“Oh, those
female witches could use some clothing made of that
cloth,” I spluttered. “I hope they get some – oh, in some
really bright colors, ones that glow in the dark.”

The giggling I
could feel – and hear – was something that I marveled at,
so much so that I asked, “what will that do?”

“Sow a degree of
marital discord among those people that you'd have trouble believing
if you saw it first-hand,” said the soft voice, “and now, those
female witches who are wearing it are thrashing as if they were dosed
with a potent convulsion-inducing poison.”

“What?” I
gasped.

“Only fiberglass
'dust' feels worse than that cloth if you're a witch,” said the
soft voice, “and the nature of that cloth, especially as it is
currently able to be done here, makes it nearly impossible to
remove while the person is alive.”

“What?”
I gasped. “Did that stuff show up with no zippers?”

“It did,” said
the soft voice, “and you need such devices to get in and out
of such clothing – especially if it's done here.”

“It's
different,” I muttered. “Stuff is even stretchier than it was
where I came from.”

“To no small
degree,” said the soft voice. “While it's not currently
available to the 'commons' across the sea, if you look for it,
some of it can be found.” A pause, then, “granted, the
currently available stock is quite old, but given a sample, it can
easily both be duplicated and substantially improved.”

“I will wish
some,” said Sarah. “It sounds...” A pause, then, “would
they notice this type of cloth these pouches have?”

“Yes, which is
why you'll wish to put those pouches in those cloth satchels you have
from the kingdom house if you take that material there,” said the
soft voice. “What's inside them, however, is sufficiently common
in that place that most of those monitoring the activities of the
populace won't think much of it if they see it.”

“Uh, why?” I
asked. “People dress in that stuff?”

“Like that, no,”
said the soft voice. “What's commonly worn for work-clothing there
is of the exact same fiber, so those bags will register as
'work-clothing'.”

“This stuff
would be bad to work in,” said Karl from somewhere behind me. “It
is heavy, and it is really slippery.”

“I hope...”

“It may be the
same fiber, but work-clothing there isn't nearly that heavy, nor is
it nearly that densely woven,” said the soft voice, “and it isn't
coated, either. It's actually similar to some clothing you
wore where you came from, at least as to feel.”

“I think I know
what kind, then,” I spat. “Dress-clothing.”

“Not quite,
at least for its appearance,” said the soft voice, “and this
stuff is both more durable and far easier to clean.” A
pause, then, “it has to be, given the near-total lack of effective
cleaning equipment that's available to the 'commons' there.”

“Effective
cleaning equipment..?” I asked.

“Most of them
would love to have something that works as well as common
'long-bar' soap and a tub similar to what you bathe in,” said the
soft voice. “They have to make do with clothes-washing as you've
done in the past before you came here – and not where you
lived last, either.”

“When,
then?” I asked. I'd had a second-hand washer and drier where I
lived, and Mrs Ulyanov did both her family's clothing and
mine in those machines. She'd told me what kind
of machines to get, in fact – and I'd paid plenty for those
ex-laundromat machines, as well as more yet to get them properly
installed in the house's basement. I did nearly all
of the work involved, as Mrs. Ulyanov was muttering in Russian about
some of the tradesmen I'd been forced to hire due to the building
codes demanding
certain things be done by 'licensed' persons. I had no such license;
hence, I needed to pay their
fees – and then go back and redo the work to suit herand her husband once
the work had been signed off and I'd paid the fees for the 'license'.
They'd both told me about how common electrical fires were where
they came from, and how badly such work was usually done there –
and the work done by the people I'd hired was worse yet.

I was glad I had
most of the machine-tools out in the shed, even if all of my
electronic equipment was in the basement, this usually under plastic
sheeting save when I had the time to use it between jobs.

“During some
instances during that intermission you had in your last stint at
school,” said the soft voice. “Recall how you had to tread
the dirt out of your clothing on occasion after boiling the water
with that small camp-stove you'd bought? Now imagine using a very
cheap species of what you used to bathe with then – one
cheaper-made than even the worst kind you ever bought,
and then water that is both 'rationed' and somewhat on the cool
side.”

“I would not
be able to get my clothing clean then,” I spluttered.

“About another
ten of those packages,” said Sarah. “I've counted sixty so far,
and that pile looks to be but barely touched.” A pause, then,
“that sounds like clothes-washing in Eisernije, at least those
instances of it I saw done.”

“What do they
use, other than bad soap?” I asked.

“They boil their
laundry with that soap, and then rinse it in more boiling
water,” said Sarah, “and they do so every time they wear it,
almost – as not merely is Eisernije a most-dirty place to work and
live, but that clothing seems to both attract and keep dirt worse
than anything I've ever seen that wasn't in a rag-merchant's
bags.”

“Given that it's
worn-out when they usually find it, that should not surprise you,”
said the soft voice. “What you don't know is its source.”

“Slave-run
clothing mills,” I spat, “and that cloth isn't linen, nor wool,
but this other plant that's both really common down there, and...”
I paused, then asked, “is that true?”

“All save what
you were thinking and didn't say,” said the soft voice. “It isn't
cheap or easy to make cloth of that stuff, at least from the
standpoint of those working to make it.” A pause, then, “the
only thing that makes it a commonplace material for cheaper
clothing in the fifth kingdom is the sky-high price of 'imported'
cloth and the 'cheap' prices of slave-labor – especially that
type of slave-labor.”

“Deep-slaves,”
I muttered. “The very lowest of the low, those who are about
used-up and ready to be fed to... What?”

“Precisely what
is done with many dead slaves,” said the soft voice. “They are
fed to swine – and often, they're fed to those animals while still
alive.”

“But common pigs don't like to eat
meat,” said Sarah.

“That is generally true up here,”
said the soft voice, “and usually true in the fifth kingdom,
least-ways if the pigs in question are 'entire-domestic' swine.” A
pause, then, “not all pigs in the fifth kingdom are
'entirely-domestic'. Some have had less-than-distant
ancestors from Norden, and those animals,
if they can be kept properly, have appetites similar to Desmonds.”

“Grow like
Desmonds, also,” I muttered. “That's probably why those things
are kept.”

“Exactly, and
their flesh is passed off to unsuspecting just-starting witches as
'cheap' meals,” said the soft voice. “But one trouble with those
pigs.”

“What would that
be?” asked Maarten, as I handed back the last of the bags.

“No witch
currently alive can eat those things more than a few times and expect
to not die in a great hurry,” said the soft voice. “One
meal, perhaps two – but a brief period of wasting that soon fades
into their former state of 'health', such as it is – then dying
perhaps ten to twenty years earlier than otherwise. Five such
meals from such animals, though... That means certain death within
weeks after the last instance of such consumption.”

As I handed back
the very last bag – I'd gotten it as a 'spare', for some reason –
I asked, “now where?” A pause, then, “oh, that cooking fuel
and some of those, uh, cones.”

Those proved
easily picked up and carried, and as the others worked at getting
'two each and three more of those bricks', as Sarah spoke of the
matter, I went after the cones. I was more than a little surprised
to see several 'ammo cans', and when I opened one, my lantern
abruptly went a good deal dimmer. I pulled out two of the
cloth 'sacks' and closed the 'can' with a thump, then as my lantern
resumed its former brightness over a period of some few seconds, I
read one of the tags.

“Thirty cones?”
I asked. “I hope that's enough.”

I had the
intimation it wasn't, and I put my lantern some few feet away on the
floor, then got two more bags, then a third one. I then knew
I'd gotten enough cones.

“And
I know what next to get,” I thought, as I found the string left for
me and headed back toward the fleeting echoes of the others as they
moved slow and laboriously toward the carts. “Plastic explosive,
unless that stuff is way out of our way.” I did not speak
of it being possibly hard to get to from where we were, especially
given where Katje had seen the stuff.

“I'd get that
stuff next,” said Sarah from somewhere ahead of me, “as this
order may have us traveling more now, but we will be moving
things about less later – that, and it will organize matters much
better in general.”

“How did she
hear me?” I thought, as I moved faster and caught up with the
others as they began to actually 'stack' the satchels on two
of the carts. “Explosives?” I asked – and this time, I spoke
audibly.

“We'd best get
those next,” said Katje. “Both kinds. I know where the gray
stuff is, as I'd recognize that stink if I'm twenty paces from a
brick of it.” A sniff, then, “it's further away than that,
though.”

I had to lead the
carts all the way through to the 'front' to then emerge near the
chained-together poles leading to the drink-house, and as we came
into the aisle – I'd found another dropped machine pistol, two
rifles, another 'usable' Tosser pistol that some witch had laid aside
so as to run easier, and located several more dust-mounds – I said,
“one other matter.”

“What is that?”
asked Karl. “I hope you are keeping track of where everything is
in here, as this place is bad for getting people lost.”

I had taken the
map in hand, and as I walked ahead, I found convenient stretches of
flat wall and marked up what I had seen, this on the map, regarding
dust-mounds and accursed tungsten. That stuff was scattered all over
to such an infernal extent that one needed to know
where to step in the 'maze' so as to avoid it, and the sooner that
particular species of toxic material could be 'removed' from the
premises, the better. In the meantime, a broom of sorts sounded
most-wise so as to clear a path to where we wished to go – and
otherwise, I had a question about the tungsten itself.

“So how do I get
a sample?” I thought.

“There are
gloves for that, along with those sample bags,” said the soft
voice. “Put a pair on, get a sample bag, and gently put one of
those cloth sacks you saw into it – then close the sample bag up
with the tie.” A pause, then, “it can be handled then without
worry.”

As we passed
closer to where I recalled smelling that grayish explosive, I
recalled there being several stacks of it. I wondered if the
'off-white' material was by it.

“Duh, of course
it is,” I muttered. “Probably right next to it, in fact.”

“It is,” said
the soft voice, “even if there is much more of the gray material.
I'd get as much of both types as you and the others can reasonably
carry in two trips between those stacks and the carts.”

A minute's walk
closer, this along the aisle, and Katje spoke of smelling what we
were after. I could smell it also, and as we came closer still, I
turned to my left and pointed at a 'mound'.

“There..?” I
said, my voice indicating a question.

“That smells a
bit like cooking fuel,” said Sarah, “or so I recall it smelling
from my times using it in the past.” She ceased towing her cart,
folded the tongue back into the 'up' position, then cautiously came
closer to where I was carefully removing a 'brick'. This material
was not merely plastic-wrapped, but as I touched it, I noted – by
feel – that it was actually inside a thin cloth 'pouch' – a
pouch, that when I handed it to Sarah, I noted, had a 'carrying
strap'. The lantern's light showed its coloration to be that
strangely mottled green-yellow-brown, each blotch edged by a thin
black line.

I knew we could
use such pouches here, if not overseas. They looked about
right for 'women's purses' and perhaps smaller versions of possible
bags – and the color scheme was just about right for traipsing
around in the area's forests.

“This is cooking
fuel, all right,” said Sarah – who then opened the flap of the
pouch and touched the plastic in some strange way. “The usual
stuff sold in that fourth kingdom market smells like this when it is
old and stale.”

“Then what
was that material we found earlier?” asked Katje.

“That was also
cooking fuel, though I think it was packaged differently,” said
Sarah – who then showed me the place where her package had become
unwrapped slightly. In the light of my now-bright-burning lantern, I
noted not merely the former off-white color, but also a distinct
yellowish tint I had not seen before.

“This stuff
smells weird, and uh, really flammable,” I muttered as I knelt down
to smell what Sarah was holding. “It smells, like, uh, Torga, only
not quite as volatile.” I then had a question for Sepp.

“I hope
you did not plan on bringing any of that smelly root on the
trip,” I murmured.

“I have some in
my cooking things,” said Sepp, “but it is in a vial I got from
Andreas, with a wax cork.” A pause, then, “why, are you afraid
it will soot you up again should I use it?”

“I would be most
careful with that stuff if you cook with it around him,”
muttered Sarah darkly, “as Anna told me at some length just what
happened to him when he was coming close to some of it with a candle
in his hand.” A pause, then, “and we would not wish something
like that to happen if those blue-dressed thugs or those
stinkers who are thugs and look like commons over there are anywhere
nearby.”

I carefully sealed
up the plastic wrapping until we were ready to actually try using it,
saying as I did, “I think I know why this stuff is done up this
way. This is for field cooking, and that other stuff is
intended for making holes in armored battle cars, so it gets
packed differently.” I then thought to actually look at a package
of the cones themselves, and upon finding one of the sacks, I noted
someone had untied one of them enough for me to readily open
the sack. I removed an odd-looking blunt-tipped cone, this looking
as if first tinned so that it could be readily formed, then afterward
– with mostly worn-off tin-plating – the cone looked to have
seen lengthy annealing in the middle of a coke or a 'colder' charcoal
fire. The sense was that this had been added to by a modest level of
tarnish, this applied by sheer age; and then I felt the thin greasy
coating of preservatives on the outside, and what might have been a
species of greasier-yet 'felt' impregnated with preservative grease
on the inside of the cone.

“And
no manual for these things,” I muttered.

“There is
one, but it's not in that pile,” said the soft voice. “Recall
that alcove Katje mentioned? There's a copy of every manual in
there in a sizable bookcase, even if some of the ones out here are
either entirely handwritten or heavily annotated by witches and then
slipped in among the materials, and you need to get those if they
show.” A pause, then, “between what you've read about what those
cones are used for, and what you have been and will be informed, you
know enough to use these things.”

“Duh, fill the
inside with that particular cooking fuel, and surround the outside
with either the gray or the white 'dough', then use some of that
det-cord to daisy-chain the charges together,” I murmured. “Splice
a cap to the end of that 'rope', one with a fuse, light it, then run
for cover before the mess goes off.”

“Pretty much,
though I'd bring some small dowels with you so as to give two
fingers' width standoff for the thicker walls you might encounter,”
said the soft voice. “Otherwise, though – eight inch third-rate
concrete reinforced with thin wires isn't the side or back end
of a four-tracking 'armored battle car', so it's not usually
near as critical.”

“Get a tamper,
though, and then we can blow holes easy,” I muttered.
Sticks would be optional then, unless these people liked to live
behind inches of armor plate hidden by that third-rate concrete.

“Keep that
thought in mind,” said the soft voice. “There are lots of
blue-suited examples you're likely to find in the area when you need
to punch holes in walls.”

Two more such
packages, these taken by Sepp and Karl, and we resumed our travel
toward the 'smelly explosive', as Katje now named it. I had a hunch
Sepp was going to test the material we'd just gotten, as well as get
hints from Lukas and Gilbertus about how to use it; and as the
telltale reek of that gray explosive came steadily closer, I could
hear dire mutterings, these about Kuchen dough gone bad and that
worse-yet stuff that was 'solid white-thread'.

“Best get some
of each, if we go by what we were told,” I murmured. “Now I hope
it's bagged up nice like that last cooking fuel was, and...

I had come upon
the first of the several pallets, and with my lamp held close to my
chest, I noted that what I was seeing was a pallet of the white
material, this in plastic bags. Picking up one of the bags showed
one of those stereotypical labels, this being the following:

“What does 'Milno' mean?” I
murmured, upon seeing an obvious tracking number – which I had
seen before in this room – and the prefix in front of it, which was
something I had not.

“They were just phasing that
nomenclature in when these supplies were originally shipped,” said
the soft voice. “There are over forty such suffixes in use now,
that one being 'shorthand' for 'Military Number'.” Brief pause.
“The other ones all end in 'NO' just like that one, and the first
three letters will be, with few exceptions, the first three letters
of the standardized department involved with it, such as 'Medno, for
'Medical Number', and 'Engno', for 'Engineering Number.”

Another pause, then, “that
doubled-six hexadecimal numbering system was then but slightly
newer, which is why you'll see things in here with either single-six
or single-four numbers also, depending on when they were either
designed or actually put in service.”

“Those sound like clues,” said
Sarah, as I then looked at the whitish bricks, then at those oblongs
on the mound next to this one, which were a grainy-looking – and
malodorous – gray color. To my utter astonishment, they had
the exact same labels.

“H-how..?”

“That was how
they got that white stuff out of the pilot plant,” said the soft
voice. “It was binned and labeled as if it were the then-common
gray material, and that particular bag you found had the bin-label
affixed to it.” A pause, then, “there are exactly two other bags
in that entire 'mound' which have labels, as that bin was one of a
number of such bins and hence only needed labels on its top and ends,
rather than every side save the bottom, as was stipulated in the
regulations present then.”

“Best get plenty
of both types,” I muttered. “I want to leave some for Hans so he
can experiment with it while we're gone.”

“He might manage
it now,” said Sarah, as she took the bricks of the white stuff I
passed her. “How much do we need?”

“F-fifteen
bricks of each,” I spluttered, “and perhaps a few more for the
trip. If Hans wants more than one brick of each, then...”

“He will, if he
likes it,” said Sarah. “I'd get twenty bricks of the white and
twenty-five of the gray, as I can think of at least one or two
reasons why we may wish it during the trip.”

“F-fishing?” I
asked.

Sarah looked at me
in complete bewilderment, then said, “that stuff? The way it
smells? No trout would think to taste it if you put it on a hook!”

“That's more of
what I meant by you alone understanding what was needed,” said
Katje – who then did a double-take and asked, “how would you use
that stuff for fishing?”

“Uh,
set it off underwater?” I asked. “It supposedly brings up fish
then – or does it?”

“Hans has done
that once,” said Sarah wryly. “He told me how it ruins
the taste of anything that's otherwise fit to eat, even if the fish
are large trouts.” A pause, then, “I meant for causing
trouble for plain-dressed witches, actually, as I've heard enough
talk in and around that third kingdom port to know a lot of those
people visit that place and its many drink-houses.”

“He had to blow
some of those things up leaving that place on the road south,” said
Karl conspiratorially. “Those stinkers had rotten cannons and
bombs for us, and I knew they wanted us dead.”

“Much of what I
heard about that place was before the trip, Karl,” said
Sarah dryly. “What I've heard since but adds to it.” A pause,
then, “that gray stuff is all labeled, at least what of it I can
see, and it has pouches for it, also.”

“Pouches?” I
asked.

Sarah then showed
me one, and other than the label on the inside flap, it was a
near-duplicate of the ones I had seen previously used for holding
cooking fuel. A look inside showed two bricks of the stuff, both
plastic-wrapped and clearly labeled, this with that one label that I
had seen before, and gathering three of these hefty pouches, I took
them to the buggies.

It took perhaps
another three minutes to gather what seemed a mound of both
colors of 'moldy Kuchen dough', and as Katje wandered over to the
wall to pick up something we'd left there earlier, I thought,
“perhaps a circuit, then drop off what we have gathered near that
door so as to get more supplies?”

“The way these
things are for turning?” said Sarah. “I think so!”

“Then perhaps
I'd best find those smaller ones,” I said. “Those seemed a bit
easier to maneuver, even if the tires are rotten. The smaller size –
I guess we live with it, as we'll still get our work done quicker
here.”

As we moved off,
this slowly and carefully in single file, I stayed close to both the
front and the wall so as to both pick up our finds and warn of
'accursed Wulfraeme shot'. That stuff was lying strewn about in
random sprays, these from ruptured sacks, or often the sacks
themselves lay in our path, and I had to nudge those out of the way
with my boots. I wondered how we had not found them in our earlier
trip about the circumference, at least until I understood that
because this stuff was indeed 'accursed', it was now showing up due
to our traveling counterclockwise.

“More like 'you
weren't looking for shot so much as the remains of witches,” said
the soft voice, “and if you could see your path, you'd be surprised
how you managed to avoid the bulk of what you're now seeing, in most
cases for the first time.”

“There's so much
of that stuff here that I hope those people can gather it up
when they come, and quickly,” I muttered. “They want it? They
can have the miserable stuff!”

“I'd reserve
some for yourself once you get back, actually,” said the soft
voice. “Add some of those pellets to your batches of crucible
steel, and you'll be really surprised at what you end up
with.”

“What?” I
asked.

While there was no
answer, I did remember something: the first true 'high-speed steel'
I'd heard of used significant proportions of tungsten in its makeup,
and this material was mostly tungsten.

“And cobalt,
along with some strange trace elements along with a few percent of
iron,” I thought. “I wonder if that stuff will turn into 'Bad
Cobalt' tool steel?”

As if to supply a
rejoinder, I saw the train tracks where they came out into the main
aisle. I'd have to go around them, and I could tell there was a lot
of bagged tungsten laying in the general area.

“Bad cobalt
indeed,” I muttered. “I'll need to try that once I get
home from the trip.”

And to that,
I had an answer, it being a single word that seemed to float upon the
windless air of an ice-chilled realm.